Heartbreak117

  It's a beautiful day outside.

  Birds are singing.

  Flowers are blooming.

  On days like these, let's py jousting with a Meized pany.

  "Ein! A little help here!?" Weiss screams after popping out to fire a burst of red sers.

  She is quick to duck down and hide her body behind the rocky outcrop when numerous sers start striking her position. Most of the sers went wide before dissipating. The few that hit our outcrop with reasonable accuracy created holes of melting and vaporizing material. Though we are unharmed and our cover holds true thus far, the smell of burning rocks is hoo the Emperor weird. That said...

  "Eh..." I wave at Weiss while chilling in my little alcove of safety. "You seem to be doing alright thus far."

  "Are you helping me or not, girl!?" Weiss shouts bacredulously at my nont.

  After the initial tact, I focus on taking out or disabling dangerous targets. I leave most of the heavy lifting to Johnson's unit and the friendly Chimeras. However, I allow Weiss to interve her discretion, if only to see how she will reader pressure. She has been doing surprisingly well, sg good hits even with the distance from us to the enemies. Despite her previous veneer of a Rookie, Weiss swiftly fell into a flurry of professional as that turned her into one of the most active and effective batants on our side. She not only dispys the leeway to retort at my semi-inactiveness, but also has the peaind to duck, weave, aaliate in the heat of bat. These are as that are drilled into ead every single Cadian out there to the point it's turned into an instinct. Yet, the weird thing here is how effortlessly Weiss is seeing those maneuvers. How undaunting she is when aligning her ironsight under heavy return fire... The skills she actively uses are not rare, but it's her profi employing them that makes me view her under a lens of strict scrutiny.

  My instinct warhat Weiss wasn't normal back when I met her ioon's Chimera. This battle right now has reinforced that notion by a few pegs. As for what I will do with this updated information about Weiss... Nothing, for now.

  "Ein!?"

  I sigh nontly. "Fine. Fine. Rookies these days boss their senior around now. Truly, time has ged."

  With a roll of her eyes, Weiss fires and punches a hole through an enemy's torso. She pins. "This is really not how I imagined you would a battle, Ein!"

  I wave lightly in her dire with my left hand before rolling on my back to a prone position. I prop my srifle on the rocky surface, seeing the swath of enemy foot mobiles from afar. "Eh, you'll get used to my mood swings soon enough. Seeing that you will stick as my battle buddy for a long, long while."

  Slumping against her cover to reload her srifle, Weiss sighs in annoyance. "I have the feeling that I shouldn't have passed that of recaf to you earlier."

  I ugh before swiveling my rifle from left tht while pulling the trigger ten times. "Aww, but I love recaf~! It trembles my brain!"

  Despite the casualness in my aim, I still score ten fatal hits on the enemy soldiers, something which Weiss is quick to pick up on while poking her head out.

  "Holy Terra... How!?" Weiss screams before she is forced to duck down.

  Her a is a timely one because a barrage of bullets soar over where her head was. "Oh, e the fu! you silehat stubber permaly!?"

  "Eh, let me reload first." I slid down, shrugging, before loading a new power pato my rifle.

  While maniputing my on, I 't help but remember the 'why' and 'how' that led 3rd Ptoon to this point.

  --------------------------------------------------------------

  "Oy, is that a freaking voidship?" Weiss asks while using her magnocurs to eye the strangely 'alien' vessel, with the word 'alien' being used very loosely.

  "Pah!" Sergeant Johnson spats out his cigarette before speaking through the Ptoon's vox el. "Say what!?"

  It's uandable why Johnson is surprised for nobody expects to see a voidship in the middle of a supposedly uful anomalous site. Even I am caught in a bit of a stupor, though it's for another reasoirely. I think I reize that crashed ship.

  An alligator-esque fore-end, a rge engine plex that is ected to the front half of the ship through a slim spinal structure. Two sets of 'arms' jutting out from the spinal structure which are, in fact, flight pods for the voidship's fighter wings. Dirtied metallic grey hull with little to no embellishment, thus giving the crashed vessel a very utilitarian look when pared to the Imperium's flying cathedrals... Yeah, there's no way in hell I will misidentify that design nguage. I did grow up watg ship breakdowns about that voidship's particur specifications and that of her brethren in my past life.

  I am looking at an Emperor forbids Battlestar!

  How!? Why!? There's legit little to no way that a Battlestar would be able to crossover into the grimdark universe of 40K! But, apparently, here we bloody are! And by the look of it, that Battlestar is surprisingly intact despite the seemingly harsh nding that carved a kilometers-long trench behind it. Now, this could all be some Chaos-specific ruse that, as weird as it sounds, targets me due to my strange presen the verse. However, that begs the question: Why go to such length, nabbing a thing from holy not in the realm of this reality and lobbing it down on Cadia? I don't think even that Blue Dude in the would have the power, the patience, or the permit to do that. The people that stay iween the verses would no doubt have a chat with the Chaos Gods if they meddle far beyond their statures.

  So this... That Battlestar... I think it's a legit ce...

  Or that Shoggoth and the Bartender are literally throwing me a bone here.

  Whatever, I am nowhere near smart or powerful enough to ponder about the ws of higher beings. What I do know is that the Battlestar is a literal Emperor-sent opportunity. It presents a treasure trove, or a Pandora's Box to be more accurate, that up-end everything we know of about the Warhammer universe, either to colpse it altogether or to build it anew.

  On further iion of the crashed voidship, I surmise that the vessel is Mercury-css Battlestar. Hailed from a different part of the Omniverse that tered around Love, Deaths, and Robots, the Mercury-css Battlestar is, quite frankly, weak. It may be the most powerful human-made vessel where it came from, but it's g in shielding, firepower, and size when pared with other voidships in the 40K universe. A frigate from over here just she Mercury-css Battlestar out of existence. Yet, the Battlestar does offer one specific tactical and strategic advahat Warhammer voidships don't have.

  FTL drives.

  Unlike Warhammer's method of FTL travel which uses the chaotic as a medium, Mercury's FTL travel is perhaps the safest way to get around anywhere fast in this gaxy. The Mercury carries multiple FTL drives which are aptly niamed Blink drives. The existence of these Blink drives allows the rge Mercury-css Battlestar to instantaneously teleport from one point in space to another using a dimensional transport effect. Better yet, the drives offer instantaneous travel without iing with the . Requiring only precise calcutions, strong enough power sources, and durable hulls, the Blink drives will revolutiohe Imperium if it be reverse-engineer. Which, when thinking deeper, the Imperium quite easily do so. The only possible issue is whether or not I sic the Adeptus Meicus at the thing without the Inquisition stepping in.

  However...

  " you describe what you're seeing, Corporal? From my point of view, I only see the very upper superstructure of that supposed voidship." Johnson ents.

  "Well," I reply. "you're nowhere high enough to see everything past the forest. But yeah, I am seeing a crashed voidship that fits none of the fas' design nguages. That said, if I am to take a wild guess, it looks distinctively human, minus all the golden and cathedral superstructure. The voidship is also quite small pared to most of our mainstay voidships. It only fits out at nearly 2 kilometers ih, I think? I 't ent about its height as I think there are parts of the ship that are sunken into the ground. Distance from us to there should be around two kilometers, give or take."

  "2.3 kilometers and some ges." Weiss helpfully adds.

  "What she said." I finish. "From here to there, we will have to pass either directly through the wood or follow a small, urail that leads to the crash site."

  Johnson smacks his lips. "How the Hell did our sensors miss something this big nding on Cadia?"

  "It could be because of the Eye of Terror?" Weiss ponders.

  "Or equipment failures." One member of our Ptoon chimes in through vox.

  "Or utter inpetency." I add. "Regardless, we have to call it in. If it's a true human voidship, then we're to render aid, I guess."

  Sergeant Johnson sighs. "And if it's hostile or whatever else that's not dead or diplomatic, we will need a purge team. This is seriously above the pay grade of this small QRF... Corporal, make sure the Sensor-skull records and transmits everything back to HQ. We will vox and-"

  "That won't be necessary, Sergeant." Another voice, an authoritative one, interjects into our versation. "This is el Mustahim speaking. We have been trag your progress and will tio monitor the situation through your pict feeds and Servo-skull. Your current order is to dig in, survey, and wait for reinforts to arrive by air."

  Both Weiss and I share a look at the word 'reinforts'. Johnson uandably says. "Uood, el, but reinforts? I thought everyone had their hands full."

  "Rejoice, 3rd Ptoon, for the Lords and Ladies of Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are heading your way." el Mustahim replies, earning murmurs from members of our unit. While I am surprised by the mention of Space Marines, I am hopeful about the ining Battle Sisters that I may see some friendly faces.

  "Well, I'll be damn. To what do we own the honor..." Johnson mutters before shaking his head. This time, he addresses the Ptoon. "Alright people, let's make sure we're presentable before any more surprises crop up. Let's get the Chimeras up here as our objective has ged."

  While Johnson is juggling unig with the el and supervising his detat at the same time, I quickly notice strange movements ahead. Tapping Weiss's shoulder, I poio the 2 o'clock position. Uanding my meaning, Weiss silently brings her magnocurs up and ss the terrain. What she is looking at is a mixture of hilly terrains aen paths. The sery there is sparsely covered by foliage and low-hanging trees, uhe dense forest in front of us. There aren't supposed to be any additional forces in this formerly anomalous site, so why are there four additional Chimeras asding the hill more than a kilometer away from us?

  "That is... Odd?" Weiss ents.

  I directly interjeto the vox unicatioween Johnson and el Mustahim. "Are you all seeing this?"

  I make a signal for the Sensor-skull to s the approag unknowns. "The reinforts are supposed to arrive by air, right?"

  el Mustahim directly replies. "Thunderhawks and Valkyries. This whole sector is the 8th Regiment's responsibility, so I say for sure there's no way in Hell we have more than two Chimeras over by the crash site! Whoever the additional Chimeras belong to, we have no idea so act cautiously! I will see if we analyze whiit those four IFVs belong to over here."

  Johnson ents. "From a curshey seem to be draped in Cadian livery, though the grainy pict feed makes it hard for me to know their full affiliation."

  Weiss asks. "Could they be from another Kasr that came to check out the situation?"

  I shake my head. "This is deep ih's purview. Our border units would have he Chimeras down if they passed by legally. More than that, the Chimeras came from a dire with no Kasr that is close to this site. If they are really a Cadian unit, they wouldn't and couldn't have e here unannounced."

  "And if they are not?" Weiss tilts her head while trag the lead Chimera with a heavy stubber on a pintle mount.

  el Mustahim answers in a grim toraitors."

  Johnson sighs. "Better be safe than sorry. Everyone prepared for bat! Donovan, prepare the uncher! Zanna, back him up! Chimeras, I want you two to be ready for anti-armor bat! And somebody gets on that stubber!"

  I nod at Weiss. "Weiss, be ready fagement. Due to the presence of possible hostile armor, we will o spread out for a bit. Also, if things really go hot, the task of suppressing the enemy position will fall onto you while I will handle high-value targets. Are we clear?"

  "Crystal." Weiss nods before pulling out her liquid tainer. She then proceeds to drink from it, possibly as a pre-bat rite, before passing it to me. "It's recaf. You want some, Ein?"

  I shrug before accepting the offer, taking a good gulp from the eic goodness before passing it back tood stuff, thanks. Oh, and I do apologize if I act a bit different ihick of things after this."

  Raising an eyebrow after accepting back the teen, Weiss asks. "What do you mean?"

  I smile, my lips quirking up a bit more than usual. "Eh, you'll see."

  Heartbreak117